1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to digital media products. More particularly, the present invention relates to interfaces and methods for accessing and organizing digital music content and other tracks.
2. Description of the Related Art
Digital content has evolved dramatically in terms of scope and prevalence over the past several years. For example, analog sources such as vinyl records played back on turntable playback units have been substantially replaced by portable CD ROM players or personal portable players having MP3 (Motion Picture Experts Group, Audio Layer III) and other audio digital file playback capabilities. Recently, personal portable media players have seen increasing popularity. More recently, portable media players have offered the storage of digital audio files in fixed or removable memory. In order to expand the content available from the fixed capacity of the memory, the digital files are often stored in compressed form and played back by the device after decoding.
As semiconductor process gate lengths have decreased, available memory capacities have increased. In turn, this enables the storage of a greater number of tracks on portable devices. Although improved navigation techniques have permitted users to access individual songs quickly, many users yearn for a simplified experience. One technique that has freed the user from a series of selection activities is the playlist. A playlist is a user defined collection of songs ordered for playback. Many users prefer to organize tracks in accordance with playlists to simplify their experience.
These playlists are often created based on metadata regarding the tracks. For example, applications running on the host computer may allow the user to select attributes for the tracks to be added to a playlist, with the hope that the program selected tracks are found suitable by the user. Unfortunately, many tracks placed into the playlist by these automatic playlist generation algorithms are deemed undesirable by the user. Moreover, the users' interests may change over time with the result that tracks initially favored by the users over time may lose their appeal. Many programs allow the user to access the playlist from the host computer and make manual deletions or additions. But these techniques require an investment of the user's time and reflect the user's views only as current as the last time the host computer's program was accessed.
For users that didn't want to take the time to generate playlists, devices offered ‘random’ playback options (often called ‘shuffle’) to mix up the play order of the stored tracks. This too, led to undesired results and a less then enjoyable experience.
It is therefore desirable to provide a method of providing a listing of tracks for playback that tracks the user's preferences in a more dynamic fashion and that doesn't require him to constantly access the host computer to modify playlists.